AI Plans Radiation Therapy in Two Minutes express
Each morning, a navigator plots a route, bypassing traffic jams and roadblocks. Similarly, before a radiation therapy session, a new AI agent recalculates the irradiation path. From a fresh CT scan, it finds the tumor and healthy organs on its own in two minutes, then calculates how to direct the radiation beam to hit the target and spare surrounding tissues.
The agent is built on a large neural network trained on numerous examples. It reconstructs the body's internal structure from the degree of beam attenuation (somewhat like spectroscopy) and precisely outlines the tumor boundaries. The plans match expert accuracy, with dose deviations staying within safe limits. The method was tested on head, lung, abdominal, and prostate cancers using both photon and proton therapy, and it proved reliable in all cases. Thus the legacy of radiotherapy, pioneered by Marie Curie and bolstered by the discoveries of William Lawrence Bragg, now gains a digital navigator that turns hours of calculation into minutes.
Surprisingly, the system handles tumors in various locations equally well, from the head to the prostate, without any reconfiguration. It works with both conventional radiation and proton therapy, like a universal navigator that’s equally at home plotting a route through city streets or off-road.
Such systems are reminiscent of the GLaDOS assistant from the video game Portal, except instead of lab experiments, it's precise radiation control to save lives.